The Popular Milk Chocolate Bar You Should Really Avoid Buying

It was a sign of the times in the 2010s, up there with the fro-yo craze that took the nation (and every shopping center in it) by storm. We're talking about the cupcake era, and the brand Sprinkles in particular, with its fleet of sweet treat vending machines dispensing frosting-topped cupcakes, ATM-style. Though the cupcake fever has broken, the Sprinkles brand has remained a thing, still offering its baked goods shipped nationwide (and yes, the cupcake ATMs are still a thing, too!), rolling out co-branded collabs, and branching out into chocolate bars.

Unfortunately, perhaps the company should have stuck with what it does best — cakes, versus cocoa — as its plain milk chocolate bar at least falls woefully short. In fact, it snagged the dreaded last-place slot in our ranking of 20 inexpensive, popular name-brand chocolate bars, below options by Hershey's, Cadbury, and Better Goods. 

A Chowhound chocolate reviewer (tough job, we know) found the Sprinkles plain milk chocolate bar to be lacking in quality first and foremost, with the bar giving off an unpleasantly stale, musty flavor — versus the fresh, pure chocolate profile we're after. And while a sweet treat should, of course, be sweet, this one was off the charts in a bad way — mouth puckeringly saccharine. If you want to dabble in the brand's other flavors — red velvet, salted caramel, and a funfetti-inspired white chocolate bar — have at it. However, this milk chocolate option is a hard pass in our books.

Deeming one chocolate as superior or inferior is a bit like saying which wines or beers you should skip — everyone has their own opinion at the end of the day. Having said that, there are certain expectations we have for any bar — like the quality and taste of the cocoa flavor itself, sweetness level, and texture. And it's with these basic benchmarks that the Sprinkles bar just doesn't hold up.

Its ingredient list is about what you'd expect of a standard milk chocolate bar: milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, milk, chocolate liquor, nonfat milk, soy lecithin, and vanilla), so no red flags there. The bar is also kosher, gluten-free, and "premium," though we're not entirely sure what that really means. The packaging states that it's "naturally and artificially flavored," which might account for the off taste we noted. 

Sprinkles makes no note of the sourcing of its cocoa, which any chocolate lover knows can make a huge difference in the overall flavor profile, much like how the altitude of where coffee beans are grown impacts a cup of joe's flavor. Also missing from the Sprinkles page is any mention of cocoa percentage, which also greatly contributes to the overall taste of a chocolate bar.

Undeterred by these notes or just want to put our ranking to the test for yourself? Sprinkles chocolate bars are available for nationwide shipping, along with the brand's cupcakes, but don't say we didn't warn you.